


Never Again

by Winnychan



Category: TMNT (2007), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 21:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15156137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winnychan/pseuds/Winnychan
Summary: This was written for 2018 Leorai week. The prompt for that day was "Children".





	Never Again

“Children?” Karai scoffed and tossed her hair. “They are a weakness.” She slanted him a stubborn look, like she expected to be challenged.

Leonardo made a small sound that was impossible to interpret. He glanced up as he filled her yunomi with tea and saw her prideful face darken with a scowl. “I should have guessed,” he murmured. The clay vessel was dwarfed by his large green hands as he set it down before her, facing her and slightly to the left, as was proper.

She left it there and refused to look at him. “Because my heart is black and barren?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Not at all,” he corrected her quietly. “I should have known that, once again, our thoughts are perfectly aligned.”

The black curtain of her hair fell with her bow. “ _Itadakimasu_.” Her white hands lit on the offered cup with a butterfly's grace. Slipping one hand beneath the clay vessel and coiling her fingers around it, Karai lifted the cup and drank silently. “ _Gochisousama deshita_ ,” she whispered as she returned the yunomi to its proper place.

When she looked at him again, the black curve of her brow compelled him to explain.

It wasn't easy.

Slowly at first, with none of his usual confidence, he began to tell her a story. He had never spoken of this before, not to his sensei or even his brothers. Especially not to them. But if anyone could understand bloodlust and vengeance, it was Karai.

He spoke of the pitching ship, a giant moon suspended in black skies. He recalled the stink of their unwashed bodies and the way their eyes shone in the darkness, imploring and hungry for salvation. The bloody cost of their deliverance. The disgusting ease of his katana sliding into one slaver, and the next, and the next. Unskilled brawlers, the lot of them. Only a handful of the guards were armed. They had no aim to speak of, and even less discipline. Only three had been bold enough to fire a shot.

Leonardo had systematically reduced them to chunks of meat. The planks were sticky and wet with blood when he was through with them. Not just the slavers, but the cook with the gouty leg. The treasurer, groping for fallen spectacles and babbling pleas for mercy. He had killed them all and felt nothing.

The children smothered him with gratitude. Their grubby hands reached for him, shyly clutched at his rags in awe. They marveled and profused themselves and unanimously declared him a God. It wasn't the first time, and it should have stirred him, fanned the flames of his interminable pride, but he felt nothing.

He felt nothing until the following dawn, after all the children disembarked, when the scroll arrived from the Tribunal. It informed him that he had passed the trial of compassion. Then, at last, he had felt. He wanted to tear it to pieces, and to cry, and to laugh, and to spit in every one of their faces.

“There was no virtue in my heart that night,” he confessed. “Least of all compassion! It was…” His smile was a knife, quick with pain. “Barren. Black.”

Karai’s dark eyes were a balm, calm with understanding yet somehow devoid of pity.

Leonardo dropped his gaze and took up the yunomi in both hands. Though he was rattled from the telling, he was careful not to let the vessel shake. He spoke softly but with composure. “I became a monster for the sake of children. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been… if they had been _mine?”_

“Children are a weakness,” she said again, bowing her head. Quieter, she added, “But not for me. Never again. I have learned that lesson.”

Leonardo set the cup down incorrectly, forgetting the ritual as he looked at her with open surprise.

Slowly, and with none of her usual confidence, Karai began to tell him a story.

 


End file.
